If there had ever been any hope for a truly bipartisan health-care bill this year, it came in the person of one cantankerous and quirky Iowan. For months, much to the consternation of many of his fellow Republicans, Charles Grassley, the ranking minority member on the Senate Finance Committee, had continued to negotiate behind closed doors with chairman Max Baucus and four other members of the panel. No Republican received more TLC from Barack Obama, who has met with Grassley three times at the White House and called him three times more just to keep in touch. White House aides reckoned...